Urban Migration

A main characteristic of the working class has been its peasant
origins. The rapid growth of the working class in the 1960s and 1970s
was the result of migration from villages to cities. There also has been
some migration from small towns to larger cities and from economically
depressed areas, such as Baluchestan and Kordestan, to more economically
vital regions. The result of these population transfers has been an
inability of urban services to keep pace with the population growth and
the consequent spread of slum areas. In 1987 south Tehran was still
Iran's most extensive urban slum, but other large cities also had
notable slum sections. It was in these areas that marginally employed
and unskilled workers were concentrated. Immediately after the
Revolution, the government announced its intention of making living and
working conditions in rural areas more attractive as a means of stemming
rural- to-urban migration. Although the slowdown in the economy since
the Revolution may have contributed to a generally reduced rate of urban
growth, there was no evidence that migration from the villages had
ceased. The preliminary results from the 1986 census indicated that such
cities as Mashhad and Shiraz have grown at even faster rates than before
the Revolution.